Per Sofia

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I.

When I first sought the Well, I simply wished to live somewhere less perilous than my own home.

Now, many sennights later, I have learned that the Ephians play their own Games, and they are no less lethal than ours.

Given the risks I have taken to get here, and the many dangers in my work yet to come, I hereby dedicate this account of my life to you, dear sister, and to all kindred souls who seek truths forgotten and unknown.

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II.

Alone in the wastes north of Ephia, a stray wind brings me the smell of salt water, and I think of the days you would braid your hair with seaweed and try to convince the sailors from Qadira that you were a siren. Foolish and bold - we are both alike in that way.

Father was still an eel-monger then, and mother a net-mender, though even so she was more than that to others, a soothsayer perhaps, or even a Luckfisher. As you remember, I took to her charmed strangeness much more than Symeon did, and while he was desperate to win father's approval at sea, I was always and forever at her side, learning the trionfi, or cartomancy, as they call it in distant Baz'eel. I showed an aptitude for predicting when the catch would be large or small, and for knowing how to rig the nets to increase the yield. I even foretold the day they should have stayed home, a man lost to the Underdome when they refused to heed the warnings of a child.

It was not long after that they urged me to pledge my faith before the Dome of Man, and commit myself to a Sage, lest the worst be assumed by ignorant folk.

But you never assumed.

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III.

Kha'esh burns. I can see its fires in the distance, and smell its ruin in the air. There were many souls released upon the rising of that red dawn, each to be recycled anew, if what they say is true.

What paths might I have taken, in another life?

Symeon went with me to the Dome of Man, his own pilgrimage overdue. We both took the tests administered by the priests there. It was a strange affair. We were given odd items; a compass, a spyglass, a paintbrush, and others. They asked which one belonged to us. Not which one we desired to keep, but which of them was already ours. But none of these things belonged to me.

Symeon picked the compass, which seemed to be a good choice, as he was soon accepted as an acolyte of Sage Markolo, the Navigator. Despite his urgings, I refused to lie, and asked them how their test was marked. This appeared to upset them. After much deliberation, they cast me aside to the Lamp of Learning, my questions to be handled by the Artificers.

I know there was no such chance for you, mia cara sorella, and that Fortuna made a fickle mother to us both. But with all that came after, I hope you are keeping well, and that Symeon has not abandoned you, as I have.

I am sorry.

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IV.

Mia Cara Sorella,

My master has lost her latest gambit. Perhaps it is for the best that her price was too high. What they asked her to do would have cost us all.

My hidden mentor, whose long elfin years called him to hermitage, has fled into Ash with all his forbidden teachings.

My predecessors and peers have been slaughtered in the shadows, or hurled from the Tower, their works censured and forgotten.

Ten Swords are reversed into the eagle's nest. Q'tolip's house is not in order.

It recalls my time beneath the Lamp of Learning. My tutor then was a man called Cecco, an Artificer-Priest of some acclaim. He would often depart across the Sea for weeks at a time, only to return with strange findings. Grim totems and ashen relics, at first. Later, fragments of old machinery, and specimens of living things. Things that should not have been, their flesh intertwined with gears and plates. Things whose bones were pistons, whose blood was oil.

In the months that followed, I watched Cecco's mind decay as he told me many fantastical tales. He came to believe the Disc was a hell of nine layers; that we were artificial creatures made by a long-departed machine race; that our destiny was to seed the stars. He worked behind layers of traps and puzzles, holing himself up in oubliettes that none could find. In the final throes of his madness, when he could barely walk or write without aid, he presented one of his "creations" to the Grand Duke's winter carnival, and proclaimed himself the Sage Giacomo incarnate.   

It was then that la Inspecta arrested Cecco before all the Duke's subjects, charging him with mechanistic works. They claimed they had watched him for years, waiting until he finally condemned himself with gormless abandon. To this day, I believe it was all part of the Game they play, to make an example of the Mad Sage, and to drive his disciples into the shadows.

But they would not be so patient with me.